


those hearts most entwined

by hazel



Category: Secret Circle - L. J. Smith
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, Interpersonal Drama, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-25
Updated: 2017-04-25
Packaged: 2018-10-22 21:14:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10705242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hazel/pseuds/hazel
Summary: She dreams that night of ocean swells and summer sand, a bright blue sky stretched endlessly over the horizon, the smell of lemongrass and mint.





	those hearts most entwined

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nerissa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nerissa/gifts).



> This is not the story I expected to write but it's what happened, and I hope you like it (I've been telling myself that it's consistent with the _philosophy_ of your prompts, even if not consistent with any of them specifically. I hope that's true!).
> 
> With thanks to C, S, T, and V.

The fourth thing Cassie does when they get to the Cape, straight after arriving at the motel, unpacking her suitcase, and solemnly promising her mother that she’d be careful in this strange state, is go to the beach.

It’s a Tuesday morning, bright and sunny, and the trees are different to the ones back home: elms and sugar maples instead of the palm trees and sycamores she’s familiar with. It’s a nice walk, though, past old houses and scruffy motels, everything getting gradually nicer and larger until suddenly she turns a corner and the Atlantic opens up before her.

Beth had made her a mixtape when she’d told her group of friends she was spending the whole summer on the other side of the country, and she’s been listening to it obsessively, so much that it’s no longer jarring to have Toni Braxton fade into Code Red. There’s a dent on her Walkman’s casing and she thinks the left side of her headphones is getting crackly, but it’s still her favourite Christmas present from 2 years ago, and it goes with her whenever she’s alone.

Once she makes it onto the beach, she sets out her towel and sits down to listen to music, staring out to sea and sinking her feet into warm sand, and there she stays until she’s feeling connected to the earth again, no longer as adrift as flying had made her feel.

*

It’s Whitney Houston’s fault that Cassie meets the girl.

Cassie only has a copy of _I Will Always Love You_ at all because it had been shoved onto the end of a mixtape she’d bought out of the back of a van near Malibu Beach for $5. But it’s a song she can’t help but pay attention to, and so she doesn’t see the girl’s bright red towel or her long, tanned legs stretched out, toes painted dark burgundy to match, as it turns out, her bikini.

She ends up sprawled in the sand, her headphones tangled somehow around her neck, only one flipflop still on her foot and the familiar feel of embarrassment chasing up her spine.

“Get off me!” the girl demands, voice sharp.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry!” Cassie says, scrambling off her and ending up somehow flat on her back for a few seconds before she manages to get herself sitting up. “I’ll—I’ll just—” Her bag is probably full of sand and her ankle hurts, but that’s nothing compared to the glare she’s getting from this strange girl.

“You’ll just,” the girl mocks. She’s beautiful, with tumbling dark curls and odd yellow-brown eyes, one of the most beautiful girls Cassie has seen in her life.

“Um,” Cassie says. “I’ll just—go?”

“You do that,” the girl retorts, and she doesn’t even blink when Cassie hisses upon standing.

Cassie’s two steps away, limping, when the other girl arrives. This one is equally beautiful, with a waterfall of blonde hair down past her hips, and they obviously know each other. “Faye!” the new girl says, sounding softly disappointed. “I saw everything—she’s really hurt!”

The black-haired girl shrugs. “She did it to herself,” she replies. “And what do I care—she’s just an—”

“ _Faye!_ ” the blonde girl repeats, urgent this time, and the black-haired girl curls her lips but doesn’t finish her sentence.

“I’m Diana,” the blonde girl says, turning to Cassie. “And this is Faye.”

Cassie exhales. “I’m Cassie,” she says. “I’m just here on vacation.”

Diana smiles. “Oh, we are too—oh, let me help you sit down—where are you from?”

*

Faye and Diana, it turns out, are cousins from a small town on the North Shore, up past Boston and so tiny it’s not on the maps. They’re here for the summer because, Faye says, the boys are better down here. But Faye’s looking at Cassie as she says this in a way that makes Cassie think maybe that’s not the real reason.

At first, Cassie feels a little weird about hanging out with them all the time. Faye doesn’t seem to like her much, rolls her eyes half the time when Cassie speaks and never hesitates to get in an insult when she can. She’s the same with Diana, though, and Diana whispers to her on their fifth day hanging out on the beach that Faye’s got a good heart, underneath it all.

Cassie doesn’t know if that’s true, but she knows that Diana believes it to be true, and it’s quickly becoming clear to Cassie that she’d do anything to make Diana happy. So she tries not to take the things Faye says to heart, and after a few more days even manages to summon the courage to fight back.

“You’re not exactly a rebel either,” she says, after Faye has spent a good five minutes mocking a group of locals sitting 20 feet away for being conservative sheep.

Faye blinks at her. “What?” she demands after a moment of profound silence, nothing in the air of their little group but the smell of salt and the incessant chirping of seagulls.

“Well,” Cassie explains. “You _are_ wearing Calvin Klein.” She’s looking at Faye’s cutoffs, cut so short that the hip pockets poke out at the bottom, and the way the denim contrasts with the skin of her thighs and belly. 

Faye’s stomach ripples as she sits up. “Are you mocking me?” she demands; there’s a laugh in her voice, though, so Cassie’s feeling confident as anything when she nods.

“Well,” Faye says eventually. “I suppose I shouldn’t dish it out if I can’t take it.” From the corner of Cassie’s eye, she sees Diana’s mouth drop open in surprise, but Diana doesn’t say anything. 

*

“So, are you going to take us to meet your mother?” Faye asks. Cassie’s been in Massachusetts a month, long enough that the three of them have driven up to Boston and down to Dartmouth and are planning another trip to Provincetown. 

“What?” Cassie asks absently, from where she’s leaning over Diana’s toes, painting them pearlescent pink out of a bottle Faye had fished out of her belongings.

Faye’s painting her own fingernails in yet another shade of red. “I was just wondering,” she says, which is clearly a lie, Cassie knows that much by now. Faye never says or does anything without an agenda.

“You met her when you picked me up for Dartmouth,” Cassie says. 

“Yes,” Faye says. “She was nice. So you should invite us around for dinner in your motel.”

Cassie sighs. “Sure, princess,” she agrees. Diana, searching through a whole box of nail polish Faye had apparently brought to the Cape from their mysterious small town, bursts out laughing, so loud and unexpected that even Faye stops to stare and smile, just a little, just a little softer than Cassie would have thought her capable of a week or two ago.

*

“So who are these girls?” Cassie’s mom asks, about an hour before they’re supposed to turn up and sit around the tiny motel room dining table, awkwardly eating takeout.

“Faye and Diana,” Cassie replies. “They’re from some small town,” she adds. “Up further north? New something, I think.”

Cassie’s mother is very quiet for a long minute. “New Salem?” she asks, sounding very careful.

Cassie turns and looks at her. Her mother has always been very young and very delicate; they’ve always been very close. “I think so,” she says, slowly.

“Oh,” her mother says. “Oh, Cassie, I’m so sorry.”

“What?” Cassie asks, but her mother will only shake her head.

“I look forward to meeting them,” she says.

*

Cassie’s mother is tremulously quiet while Cassie introduces Diana and Faye. Her hair has been pulled up into a bun, and for once she looks like the adult in the room; Diana’s jeans jacket and Faye’s plaid shirt worn over tights are all nice, but Cassie doesn’t exactly feel like a child in her favourite blue dress.

“And this is my mom, Alexandra Blake,” Cassie finishes. “Uh, should we sit down? Can I get you a drink or something?”

“Alexandra Howard, I was born,” Cassie’s mom says out of nowhere, before anyone can move towards the two sunken grey couches. “You’ll both know my mother.” 

*

The summer moves very quickly after that. 

“I don’t see why we can’t go home,” Cassie says, three days after her mother has changed her whole world in a single conversation. “And I don’t know why you couldn’t tell me either.”

“Cassie,” her mother sighs. “Don’t be difficult. It was hard enough for me to come back here, without having to deal with your—”

“My _what_?” Cassie demands. They’re packing up their motel room—not that there is much to pack—squirrelling away bathing suits and sundresses into suitcases and making sure nothing gets left behind. In this, at least, Cassie is being a helpful and obedient daughter, and she’s beyond frustrated that her mother refuses to explain things any further.

It doesn’t help that Faye and Diana have gone as well, back up to New Salem to, as Diana put it, _get things ready for them_. Faye had been slightly more helpful—which surprised everyone, Cassie thinks—and said that Cassie being _one of them_ changed things, but not to worry about it. She’d even hugged Cassie before jumping into her little red car and racing off.

Cassie misses them, which is ridiculous: she’s known them less than six weeks, and she’ll see them again in a few days. She misses them more than she misses her friends back home in California, and that’s something she finds herself obsessing over as she’s trying to get to sleep. She keeps dreaming about them, too, Faye’s laughter and Diana’s smile, all bound together with silver, and wakes up lonely. It isn’t helping her mood.

“Your attitude,” her mother says. “It’s not like you to be like this.”

“It’s not like you to move me across the country with no warning,” Cassie retorts. “All my things are in Reseda.”

“We’ll have them shipped later,” her mother says, for the fifteenth time, voice tinged with annoyance. 

*

The road to New Salem starts off as an interstate, devolves into a four-lane highway, and ends up as a narrow, windy road, unmarked and barely sealed, leading over an ancient wooden bridge into what looks to Cassie like a village out of time.

There’s an IHOP at least, or will be soon, and a few other chains; but mostly it’s old mom-and-pop stores with mullioned windows and handpainted signage. The houses are narrow, worn, and wooden, with steep slate roofs and carefully tended gardens, and Cassie stares out the car window at them, wondering which one is theirs. 

But they keep driving, through the village, past a couple of schools and a cemetery, on and on while the road gets narrower and more windy, curving endlessly towards the south end of the island. Just when Cassie thinks they must be heading over a cliff into the sea, they turn a corner, and the cluster of houses she’d first seen at a distance resolves into individual houses, some well-tended and others abandoned. They pass a turreted Victorian—Diana’s house, if Cassie has remembered correctly—and a small Queen Anne covered in gingerbread and whimsy, and keep driving until the very last house.

It’s—old. Older than Cassie expected, even though she’d been told the family—her mother’s family—had lived in this spot since the 17th century, with peeling paint and a scrubby-looking garden. Cassie’s mom parks the car abruptly, right on the grass, and throws open the car door like she wants to fight something. Cassie gets out a little more slowly, and by the time she’s standing, the front door has opened and a wizened old woman is making her way down the stairs.

“Hello, Alexandra,” the woman says.

“Hello, Mother,” Cassie’s mom replies. “Well, here we are.”

“And you must be Cassandra,” the woman says. Cassie nods, and her grandmother takes her hands. “I’ve waited a very long time to meet you. Come inside.”

The house isn’t much nicer indoors. The wallpaper is ancient, fading in places and warped in others, and the floorboards are dusty and well-travelled. They make their way through a dim corridor of almost-closed doors and a staircase leading up, through to a kitchen, and for the first time Cassie feels charmed by this place. The room is large, with a high ceiling that rises to a peak, and there are bunches of herbs hanging off macrame tied to the rafters. There’s a refrigerator and a modern oven range placed incongruously next to a massive open fireplace. Cassie almost gets the giggles staring at it, but instead takes her grandmother’s offer of a glass of juice and sits down at the kitchen table.

“This place hasn’t changed,” her mom says.

“Of course it has,” her grandmother replies. “I bought a new refrigerator less than ten years ago.”

Cassie doesn’t understand, but her mom bursts out laughing at that, loud and surprised, and her grandmother joins in after a moment. 

They sit at the table for a while longer, drinking their juice and exchanging awkward small talk, before Cassie’s grandmother leads her upstairs to one of the bedrooms. It’s enormous, with a massive four-poster bed and heavy wooden furniture everywhere. “You can have one of the other rooms if you don’t like this one,” her grandmother says. “But this room has a lovely view of the beach, and I thought you might like it. This was my room when I was a girl.”

“It’s lovely,” Cassie says, even if she’s not sure that it is. “I’m sure I’ll be fine here.”

*

The next morning, she pauses halfway down the stairs at the sound of an argument between her grandmother and mother. “She’ll find out eventually, Alexandra,” her grandmother says. “Better from you than anyone else.”

“I _can’t_ ” her mother replies, upset. “How am I supposed to tell her that her father—he—”

“You’ll find a way,” her grandmother says. “You’re stronger than you think.”

“You don’t know that,” her mom says.

Fabric rustles, and when Cassie finally makes it into the kitchen, her mother and grandmother are hugging, her mom crying on her grandmother’s shoulder. “Mom?” Cassie asks.

Her mom sits up and shakes her head. “I’m okay. Just—this place doesn’t have very good memories for me. But it’s okay.”

“I—okay,” Cassie says, dubious.

“Why don’t you try to find Diana?” her mother suggests. “Unpacking won’t take long.”

Cassie blinks. “Are you trying to get me out of the house?” she demands. The silence is long and guilty.

*

She finds Faye instead, idling in her car when Cassie ventures out of the house. “You took long enough,” Faye says, out of the open window. “Get in.”

Cassie gets in. There are two other girls in the back seat, one short with curly black hair and the other a curvy strawberry blonde. “Deborah and Suzan,” Faye says idly as an introduction. 

“Hi,” Cassie offers. It’s returned with a smile like a knife from the girl with black hair. 

“Really, Faye?” the other one asks.

Cassie’s the only one who sees Faye’s lips press together, annoyed, before she says, “Really. Suzan.” The air is thrumming with tension. Cassie feels frozen in her seat, not knowing what to do or say.

Faye’s hand comes down to rest on Cassie’s thigh, just above her knee, and the touch breaks Cassie out of it. “Don’t panic, kitten. I don’t bite.”

Cassie stares at her, stunned. “ _Kitten_?” she tries to ask. It comes out more as a squeak, and she flushes.

Faye looks... odd. Surprised at herself. She might even be blushing a little, Cassie thinks, but she bites her lip, perfectly white teeth into her perfectly red lipstick, and shakes it off. “What of it?” she demands.

“I—um,” Cassie says.

Behind them, Suzan is cackling with laughter. Faye puts her foot down.

*

“You’re a witch, Cassie,” Faye says, bluntly. They’re in the woods, by a stream, sitting the four of them on a bright red blanket Faye had pulled out of her car’s tiny trunk.

“Sure,” Cassie says. “Whatever you say, Faye.”

Deborah makes a choking noise, and Faye huffs. “I’m serious.”

Cassie sits up. There isn’t even a hint of laughter in Faye’s voice. “There’s no such thing as magic,” she says, confused.

Faye shakes her head at her. “Don’t believe everything you read. We’re all witches—all the families on Crowhaven Road, going back generations.”

Cassie thought they’d come out here for a picnic, not so Faye could make fun of her. “This isn’t funny,” she says.

“I’ll show you,” Faye says. She holds out her fist at Cassie’s eye level and opens her fingers slowly. In the centre of her palm, there’s a light, bright yellow at the edges and blinding white in the centre. “See?” 

“Oh my god,” Cassie says, just before everything goes black.

*

When she wakes up, her head is resting on Faye’s thigh and Faye is staring down at her. “You’re awake,” Faye says, looking faintly relieved. “I was about to send Deborah off for help.”

“What happened?” Cassie asks, slowly. She thinks she remembers everything, but—

“You fainted,” Faye says. “After I showed you some magic.”

Cassie closes her eyes. “I don’t—why would you—what are you _doing_?”

“I’m trying to get you on my side before Diana can steal you for herself,” Faye says. She makes it sound obvious, but when Cassie opens one eye to take a peek, Faye looks annoyed, like she’s surprised herself. There’s a flash of silver when Cassie closes her eye again, not wanting to get caught in the act, and she wiggles her head a little to get more comfortable.

Then she thinks about what Faye just said. “Your side?” she demands, opening both eyes this time and sitting up. “What do you mean, _your side_?”

“For control of the coven,” Faye explains. It doesn’t explain much. “I want to be leader, so does Diana—you understand.”

“No,” Cassie says.

Faye’s explanation doesn’t really make anything much clearer. “So, you’re hanging out with me to get my vote,” Cassie says eventually. She doesn’t know how to describe how she feels: tight, forced inwards and compressed, like she’ll burst if anyone touches her. She thought Faye was her friend.

Faye looks odd, uncomfortable. Suzan and Deborah have been watching this whole conversation avidly, Cassie realises, but at a glare from Faye they walk off into the woods. “No,” Faye says eventually. “Not just your vote. I want you _on my side_.”

She reaches out to touch Cassie on her arm, careful, and that’s it. “Maybe I want you on mine,” Cassie says, standing up and walking off in the opposite direction from Suzan and Deborah. She doesn’t know what she’s doing or where she’s going—it’s deeply stupid, she knows—but she knows she doesn’t want to be around Faye, who apparently just wants to make up lies about magic and get Cassie’s vote for some stupid club.

“Cassie, come back,” Faye calls, sounding annoyed.

“Leave me alone,” Cassie yells back, walking deeper into the woods and wishing for solitude.

*

She finds her way to a road an hour or so later and follows it for a while. It ends up at the cemetery she passed with her mom on the way to Crowhaven Road, so she thinks she can figure out how to get home. In the meantime, though, cemeteries are quiet and the day still has a few hours in it, so she walks amongst the graves until she gets to a row of Howards, and then she studies them carefully. The oldest there are so old the dates are hard to read, but there’s a Jacinth who died in 1743 and a Margaret Howard Conant, born in 1683, who died in 1756, and these are her people, her family. She wonders, suddenly, why her mother left; and how she brought herself to go.

It’s dusk when she stands up from Jacinth’s grave, and she realises she’s spent hours daydreaming about Jacinth’s life, in the kitchen at Number 12 as it would have been three centuries ago, herbs in the garden outside and pheasants hanging from the rafters, the smell of cracked wheat and freshly-churned butter; a blonde woman laughing at her with Faye’s eyes while she sits, hemming handkerchiefs and darning stockings.

She’d been so deep in the daydream it had almost felt real, which has happened to her before but not often enough that she’s used to it, and she’s surprised that the air has cooled and the stars are beginning to show. The walk back to Crowhaven Road would have been long enough in sunlight but in twilight it’s an odd walk, unlit by anything but the stars and moon and the last dying rays of the day, sinking into the ocean. 

Faye’s in the kitchen when she gets home, talking quietly with Cassie’s grandmother with red eyes and a large mug of steaming pale yellow tea in front of her. “You’re young yet, and impulsive, I think,” Cassie’s grandmother is saying as Cassie enters the room.

“What are you doing here?” Cassie asks Faye.

Faye’s pupils widen. “You ran off into the woods and I couldn’t find you!”

“You obviously didn’t look very hard,” Cassie retorts.

“I tried _everything_ ,” Faye snaps back. “I even asked Melanie.”

Cassie frowns. “Who’s Melanie?”

Faye shakes her head. “One of us. But Diana’s friend. That’s not important. But you hid from all of us—don’t you see? This proves it—that you’re a—”

“It’s time for you to go home now, Faye,” Cassie’s grandmother says firmly. “We’ll take it from here.”

Faye’s obviously unhappy about it, but she goes, letting the kitchen door slam a little behind her. “That girl,” Cassie’s grandmother sighs. “Now, where were we?”

“I don’t know,” Cassie says.

*

It turns out that magic is real.

It turns out that there is magic in everything, magic in the sand and the sea and the sky, magic in the grass that grows in the cracks of the driveway and the insects buzzing out near the borage, magic in the wood of the kitchen table and the slate of the kitchen floor, magic in life and death and everything in between, and if she concentrates hard Cassie can hear it.

“We’re a strong family,” her grandmother says.

“ _Mom_?” Cassie demands, surprised.

Her grandmother closes her eyes and sighs. “Your mother—she was very young when she had you. Very young. I tried to protect her and I failed. And, yes, your mother. It would have gone easier for her if she hadn’t been as strong, I think.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Cassie says. Her grandmother talks in riddles half the time; the other half, it’s in shortcuts, the words you use amongst people who already know what you’re talking about. It makes conversations difficult.

Her grandmother sighs again. “She was very young and very powerful and very vulnerable—your grandfather had just died, or he would have put a stop to it right away—and he used that, your father.”

“But who is he?” Cassie asks.

“A dead man,” her grandmother answers, and then changes the subject with such finality that Cassie is silent through the next five minutes of confusing explanations about dreams.

They’ve moved on to sensing magic when Cassie has a revelation. “Oh, you mean like the silver cords I keep seeing?”

“Silver cords?” her grandmother demands. “Where? Who?”

Cassie stares at her. “Me and Faye. And Diana. Me and Diana. I don’t see any between Faye and Diana.”

“Oh my good Lord,” her grandmother says faintly.

“What? What is it?” Cassie asks, because her grandmother looks old and shocked.

“The silver cord—well. I said I’d explain things and I will. Let me just—” she goes over to the fireplace and prods at a brick until it comes loose, and pulls out an object wrapped in cloth. “This is the family Book of Shadows. I suppose you’d call it a grimoire. But it’s our family history, all the knowledge we’ve gained and the secrets we’ve held. I think there’s something about silver cords near the beginning.”

The book is heavy, with gossamer-thin pages covered in spidery writing. Cassie turns each leaf carefully, and on the seventh page she finds a few lines: _& it is ſaid that thoſe hearts moſte entwined are thoſe bound by the ſilver cord, the brighteſt of which can be ſeen by all who look,  & that all things alſo are linked thus though not as ſtrongly & that the ſilver cord remains even amongſt thoſe ſeparated by age or race or creed or ſex & that it cares not for the good order of things but only for the true bonds of hearts felt deeply; it is ſaid alſo that Jacinth Howard and Kate Merritt felt the ſilver cord between them, though it did not bind them in fleſh but only in ſpirit._

“Oh,” Cassie says finally.

“Love is what it will be,” her grandmother says. “You don’t have to figure it all out yet. But—be careful.”

“Yes,” Cassie says.

*

Diana shows up just after breakfast the next morning, while Cassie’s still slumped at the kitchen table in her dressing gown, clutching a large mug of coffee and pondering her dreams. “Are you okay?” she asks.

Cassie stares at her. Now that she knows to look for it, the silver cord is thrumming between them, alive and strong and insistent. “We’re witches,” is what comes out of her mouth.

Diana drops into a chair. “I thought Faye might have told you. She’s so—I had a plan.”

“Um,” Cassie says. “To get me on your side?” She regrets it as soon as she’s said it; she can’t even imagine Diana plotting like that.

Diana reaches out and takes her hands. “Of course not. But I wanted to make sure you were okay, and you’re _not_.”

“It’s the silver cords that are weirder, I think,” Cassie admits. 

Diana’s eyes widen. “You see it too?” she asks. “Oh! I mean, I broke up with Adam, but I wasn’t sure—and of course I didn’t think you knew anything about it—and I’ve never—wait, you said _cords_.”

Cassie nods. “I—you and me. And me and Faye. I’m not sure about you and Faye, but—you’d know, maybe?”

Diana’s hands tighten around Cassie’s own. “You and Faye too? _Oh_.”

She doesn’t say anything else, but they’re still sitting there, both blushing faintly, when Faye walks in as though she owns the place.

“What are you doing here?” she demands of Diana.

Diana looks up at her. “I wanted to see how Cassie was. You were worried about her last night.”

“No, I wasn’t,” Faye claims. It’s so obvious a lie that Cassie disentangles her hands from Diana’s, so she can turn around in her chair and stare at Faye more effectively. “Shut up,” Faye instructs them both.

“You shut up,” Cassie says, feeling about 12 and out of her depth. It’s one thing to think the girls you met on the beach are the most beautiful girls in the world; it’s quite another thing to have your grandmother know that you love them. And Cassie’s still not sure what love is, or how it feels; all she knows is that she wants to hold both their hands at once.

*

Cassie drives herself to her first day of school, Faye and Diana having spent a good thirty minutes the night before bickering pointlessly about it. It makes more sense, now that Cassie’s met everyone her age on Crowhaven Road, why Faye and Diana are at loggerheads so much; Diana’s clearly the good girl, the good example, with her studious and polite friends, and Faye’s the wild child, not quite yet an object lesson. 

It makes even more sense now that she’s having nightly dreams in which she’s dressed in homespun wool and Kate has Diana’s hair and Faye’s eyes and fine linen undergarments that Cassie likes to peel off her, one ribbon at a time. She doesn’t know how a soul would be split, and the family Book of Shadows is no help to her at all, but it has happened, and Faye and Diana are separate people, whole people, individuals unto themselves—and collectively, Cassie’s soulmate. Soulmates. It’s confusing.

Hardly anyone is at New Salem High School when she gets there, and the girl she asks for directions to the office looks curious but distant. Perhaps she’d seen Cassie with Faye, last week when Faye took her for ice-cream, or with Diana, two days before shopping for shoes. Everyone has explained Crowhaven Road to her repeatedly.

Faye arrives at the office just as Cassie’s leaving. “You’d already left when I went to pick you up,” she says. She sounds like she doesn’t care in the slightest, but if that were true she wouldn’t be here.

“You and Diana were being stupid,” Cassie says. “I know how to drive.”

“I’m getting that,” Faye says. “But I’ll walk you to your locker. I need to know where it is anyway.”

Cassie shrugs. “Sure. Do you want to carry my books, too?”

Faye flushes at that, but grabs Cassie’s notebooks and backpack anyway, like a dare and a challenge, and stalks off in her red heels while Cassie follows her, feeling something like a puppy. “We’re in Creative Writing together,” she informs Cassie, once Cassie’s got her locker open and is stuffing her books into it haphazardly. “I’ll see you there.”

“I—okay,” Cassie says. It feels like everyone in the hallway is staring at her, and she hurries off in what she hopes is the right direction for her first class, head down and heart racing. It’s annoying how much Faye gets to her, and how little she seems to get to Faye in return.

*

Creative writing is okay; the teacher makes them write a poem, and Cassie finds herself writing about _dark hair and long legs, yellow eyes and a knife-edged smile_ and _spun wheat in the clear blue sky_ and _girls in white dresses laughing_. Afterwards, Faye grabs her work off her and stands there, reading it. Her eyebrows raise when she gets to the part about _soft touches_ and a flush rises on her neck; Cassie stares at it, biting her lip. 

“I’ll keep this,” Faye says eventually, folding the paper into eighths and tucking it into her jeans pocket. “Let’s go for a walk.”

“I have class!” Cassie says.

Faye shrugs. “You’ll pass, don’t worry.” Her hand is firm around Cassie’s wrist, leading her down the hallway. Cassie twists her hand, just enough to link their fingers together—being around Faye always makes her feel braver—and Faye’s fingers squeeze a little tighter.

Faye leads her out of the building and across the fields, to an old block with busted-out windows and DO NOT ENTER tape on all the doorways. “This was the science blocks—until Chris and Doug had an accident. Now we’re the only ones who come here.”

“I’m meant to be in class,” Cassie repeats.

Faye rolls her eyes. “And I told you not to worry about it.” She tugs on Cassie’s hand, and Cassie stumbles forward, up the steps, through a dirty hallway, and into an abandoned chemistry lab, complete with bunsen burners and a periodic table on the wall. Cassie gets a little distracted by the room, imagining her mother sitting on the second bench from the back, wearing bell-bottomed jeans with her hair in a long braid, and Faye tugs on her hand again.

This time, Cassie stumbles forward, catching herself with her other hand on Faye’s hip. They’re pressed together from their stomachs down, Faye’s thighs warm where they’re touching Cassie’s through their jeans. Cassie can’t bring herself to remove her hand from Faye’s hip, so she looks up at Faye instead.

“Have you ever been kissed before?” Faye asks. She’s staring at Cassie, only a couple of inches taller—Cassie doesn’t know what she’s done with her shoes—and her breath is warm and her chest is rising and falling with each breath and Cassie can feel the silver cord humming between them.

“Yes,” Cassie lies. “Have you?” Being around Faye always makes her want to be braver. 

Faye grins then, a real one, wide and charming and charmed. “God, you’re cute,” she says. “We’re going to have so much fun, you and I.”

“Are we?” Cassie retorts, and that’s when Faye kisses her.

*

They’re making out on a lab table when Diana comes in. Faye’s still standing—just, Cassie thinks with satisfaction—and Cassie’s propped up on one elbow, her ass on the edge of the table and her legs wrapped around Faye’s waist. She’s managed to untuck Faye’s blouse and is stroking her fingers along the smooth skin of Faye’s back; there’s a spot that seems to consistently make Faye shudder and kiss Cassie harder.

“Oh,” Diana says. She sounds bewildered, and Cassie pulls away from Faye and prods at her until she can sit up.

“Diana?” Cassie asks.

“I saw you two out of my History class window.”

Faye shrugs. “What of it?”

“I just—it’s her first day, Faye, you’re hardly—and you’re at school!” Diana looks genuinely frustrated—and flustered—she’s flushed, and she keeps looking between Faye’s untucked blouse and Cassie’s neck.

“So?” Faye demands, staring at her. “What do you—you’re _jealous_!” She bursts out laughing and Diana’s flush deepens into true embarrassment.

Cassie can’t let Diana be hurt, not by this. “You shouldn’t be,” she says.

Both of them turn to look at her. It’s odd, being the focus of both of them at once. Cassie likes it. “She shouldn’t be jealous,” she repeats. “I want—” Her courage fails her and she can’t finish the sentence, but she thinks they understand.

“Oh,” Diana says, hushed. “But you two—”

Cassie shrugs. “Faye makes me brave,” she says.

“Oh,” Diana says again, stepping forward; Faye hasn’t moved away very far, and she still has two fingers in the belt loop of Cassie’s jeans. “But then I—”

Cassie shakes her head. “You make me want to be kind,” she explains. “But I don’t want you out of kindness. And I—I don’t know very much about any of this, but I know what I want.”

“Oh,” Diana says, finally, and when they kiss it’s like an ocean swelling in Cassie’s mind, nothing like the crackling heat of touching Faye.

*

Diana’s father works a lot—he’s a civil litigator—and Diana has apparently been running the household since she was about 10. So it’s no trouble convincing him that Cassie should stay over a couple of nights a week, for reasons that have everything to do with homework and good study habits, and nothing at all to do with the way she and Cassie curl up in bed together, kissing endlessly by the dim light of Diana’s Tiffany lamp.

It’s more trouble convincing Cassie’s mom and grandmother that this should happen, but then: they know what’s going on.

Diana’s two close friends are the infamous Melanie of the finding-hidden-things knowledge, and Laurel, who likes plants and would, if she lived in California, dress exclusively in hemp-based products and wear flowers in her hair.

Laurel, Cassie thinks, should spend more time with Chris and Doug: they’re fond of hemp-based products too. But the schism in the teenagers of Crowhaven Road dates back to early childhood, Faye confesses, and one particular teacher in grade school who had loved Diana’s golden-haired and green-eyed obedience, and been frustratingly impatient with Faye’s piercing questions and habit of throwing things when annoyed.

“You threw things?” Cassie asks, unimpressed. 

“She did,” Diana confirms. They’re trying something new today, all three of them up in Faye’s bedroom while her mother rests in her suite on the floor below.

“I was an angry child,” Faye muses.

Cassie bursts out laughing. “So, nothing’s changed?”

Faye glares at her, but there’s a smile in it, plus a little ruefulness. “Not really.”

“You weren’t the only angry kid, Faye,” Diana says. It sounds a little like a confession; when Cassie turns to look at her, she’s staring fixedly at the two black kittens tumbling over each other on Faye’s dressing table.

“You?” Faye asks, incredulous.

Diana shakes her head. “I was thinking about Nick, actually. And Adam. And Deborah.”

Nick is tall and dark and classically handsome, with eyes like a shark. He’d terrified Cassie for about five minutes after they met, but then Suzan had started shrieking about Faye’s much shorter fingernails and he’d burst out laughing and fallen off his chair, which broke the mystery. She can see why Diana thinks he’s angry, though: he carries it like a shield.

“Adam?” Faye asks, curiosity evident in her voice.

“Yes,” Diana confirms. “He just... controls it.”

“Huh,” Faye says. 

Cassie does not know why they’re talking about Diana’s ex-boyfriend, but it seems to be helping Diana and Faye actually talk to each other about thoughts they’ve had in their heads, rather than just arguing endlessly because Faye can’t let anyone else win and Diana, despite appearances, can’t let anything go. “So you guys have been fighting for a decade because of your second-grade teacher,” she asks.

Faye and Diana look at each other. “Well, not _just_ that,” Faye admits. “Magic makes us special, and I think we should use that. Little Miss Princess over here has too many _morals_.”

“I don’t think putting glamours on pizza boys so they throw their job over to make out with you is particularly _special_ ,” Diana snaps back.

Cassie obviously overrated their chances of not fighting. Also, _gross_. “You made pizza delivery guys quit their jobs to make out with you?” she demands.

Faye flushes. “They weren’t hurt by it,” she says. “And it wouldn’t have worked if they hadn’t been into it—it only builds on attraction that’s already there. It just... lowers inhibitions.”

“I’ll never speak to you again if you ever use it on me,” Cassie says. The more she thinks about it, the more grossed-out she is.

Faye looks truly outraged. “I wouldn’t!”

“Sure,” Cassie says. “I’m going home,” she adds, surprising herself as she says it. She’s not sure exactly what about it troubles her so much. It’s not just jealousy, she doesn’t think, although she can’t stand to think of anyone else touching Faye the way she does, the way Diana is beginning to. But she knows she wants to go home and think about it, somewhere she won’t be distracted by Faye’s lips and Diana’s skin. “You guys keep talking, I—I’m not feeling well.”

“Cassie,” Faye pleads. “I’m sorry.”

She turns at the doorway. “I know. And I trust you, but I think you guys need to talk, and I need to think.”

*

She goes to sleep that night thinking of how Faye hasn’t scared her since those first few days, how she’d begun to think the other kids at school were ridiculous when they stared at Faye with wary eyes, how even the teachers are careful around her. But she’s never been anything less than gentle with Cassie since this started between them.

She thinks also about Diana, how kind and honest she is, and how bold she is when she and Cassie are alone, how bold she’s getting around Faye too, and how much fun that is to watch. What isn’t so obvious is what Faye and Diana give each other, and that’s something Cassie’s coming to realise she needs to know. She can’t spend the rest of her life tugged between them like a toy they’re fighting over.

*

She dreams that night of ocean swells and summer sand, a bright blue sky stretched endlessly over the horizon, the smell of lemongrass and mint. Faye’s there, and Diana too, and the silver cord wraps around the three of them, infinitely strong. While they sit there, the tide comes in, flicker-flashes of time passing as the sea moves closer and closer to their feet. It brings stormclouds with it, rolling grey and violent, tearing up the surf into white peaks. There’s thunder in the distance and the scent of electricity, but they don’t move. She knows they’re safe as long as they stay together.

She wakes up with a gasp and goes to the kitchen. It’s three in the morning, maybe, but her grandmother is sitting there anyway, hair loose and wild and her ancient blue dressing gown wrapped around her. “You couldn’t sleep?” her grandmother asks.

“I had a nightmare,” Cassie admits. “Well, sort of. A dream?”

“Ahh,” her grandmother says. “You’ve inherited the family Gift. I thought so.”

It’s both too early and too late for this. “There was a storm coming, in my dream.”

Her grandmother laughs. “Subtlety is overrated as you get the hang of it.”

Cassie shakes her head. “I don’t understand.” 

“We dream the future, our line. Sometimes. And it’s never very clear—emotions more than actions, for most of us,” her grandmother attempts to explain.

“We—dream the future,” Cassie repeats. 

“There are several accounts in the Book,” her grandmother says. 

“I _dream the future_ ,” Cassie says.

“You do,” her grandmother confirms. “What were you dreaming about?”

“Me and Diana and Faye,” Cassie says. “I thought it was just—we were fighting, yesterday.”

Her grandmother closes her eyes. “That girl,” she sighs. Cassie isn’t sure which one of them her grandmother is talking about. “Well, it may have been that strong emotion opened your mind to it—it’s always been that way for me. Your mother too.”

“ _Mom_?” Cassie asks, stunned.

“You can ask her about it in the morning,” her grandmother says. “For now, take the Book of Shadows, drink a glass of milk, and go back to bed.”

Cassie has never been this aggressively parented in her life. She obeys.

*

The Book of Shadows does contain a good half-dozen personal accounts of dreams that came true. The nicest one is a young woman named Nora, writing in 1877 about a series of dreams about blossoming flowers, that had ended up with her finally getting pregnant to her husband: _we are blessed with a fine daughter who we have named Violet_. Cassie consults the family tree, and Violet is her two-times-great grandmother.

It has very little in the way of guidance about analysing the things; a man named Joseph wrote in the mid-18th century about it becoming easier with time to know what dreams were trying to say. He’d tacked that on to a full page of writing about some lost crystal skull, though, so Cassie isn’t sure whether to have much faith in his words.

At any rate, her grandmother is adamant that a storm means that difficulties are coming, and that she, Diana, and Faye will have to stick together like glue to make it through. Her mother, faced with a discussion about dream interpretation over breakfast, reluctantly agrees; it’s a side of her mother Cassie has never seen before.

“I had to get out of here for my own sanity,” she admits over coffee. “Your father almost destroyed this place.”

“Who was he?” Cassie asks.

Her mother shakes her head. “That isn’t important. It’s more important that he’s gone.”

Her grandmother purses her lips but doesn’t say anything, and Cassie _knows_ , suddenly and absolutely, what the coming storm is about.

*

She goes to Diana’s house later that morning, after spending a ridiculous amount of time choosing a cardigan. In the end, she’s gone with a blue Fair Isle pattern, worn over a skirt short enough that Faye had dragged her into the janitor’s closet at school last time she wore it. She can touch the hem with the tips of her fingers, and it makes her feel powerful.

Faye’s car is in the driveway. She only lives a few houses away but still drives; she’d confessed to Diana and Cassie that it’s the only gift her mother has picked out for her in years. Diana’s father is bound to be at work, and the door’s unlocked, so Cassie lets herself in and climbs the stairs to Diana’s room, from which quiet sounds can be heard downstairs.

They’re kissing, slow and careful, when she opens the door; Diana’s hands caught up in Faye’s hair, Faye’s fingers—always the bolder—stroking down Diana’s spine, one-two-three.

“Oh,” Cassie says, dumbstruck. They’re beautiful, her girls, and beautiful together; she wants to watch almost as much as she wants to touch.

“Faye stayed over,” Diana says. “We talked.”

“Oh,” Cassie repeats. They’ve obviously done a lot more than talk. It isn’t jealousy in her stomach, not for this, but envy, she thinks; and a little regret, that she was dreaming of storms and comfort while Faye and Diana were— _talking_.

Faye grins at her. “I love that skirt,” she says. “Why don’t you come over here?”

Cassie does, and they tug her down to the bed to kiss and be kissed, slow at first and then more frantic, until Faye’s unbuttoning her cardigan and Diana’s removing it one arm at a time, throwing it off the bed somewhere and stroking her fingers under the waistband of Cassie’s skirt. Cassie’s got one hand in Faye’s hair and the other under her shirt, thumb stroking the line of her underwire while Faye gasps into her mouth. Diana, Cassie’s coming to understand, loves to watch; whenever Cassie catches her eye, she’s breathing heavily. 

The room feels brushed with silver, electric static and alive, and Cassie wants this, wants to let herself have this, even if nothing is resolved and there’s change looming in the air. 

Faye is careful when she pulls down Cassie’s underwear, and Cassie lifts her hips up to let her. It’s weird and new, having someone look at her like this, but it’s nice. It makes Cassie feel powerful, so she lets her thighs fall open, and Faye moves quick as lightning on top of her, nipping at her throat while her fingers roam.

Cassie understands why Nick laughed so hard at Faye’s short fingernails now.

Diana’s still watching, eyes wide and pupils blown; her dressing gown is open and her fingers are between her own thighs. She’s silent where Faye is not, bottom lip held tight between her teeth while Cassie gasps through the first touch of Faye’s tongue to her clit. Cassie can’t look away.

Faye’s got two fingers in her now, and Cassie’s rocking into it; she can’t get herself off half the time, but it feels like she’ll go off like an explosion any second, like all it will take is one last—and she’s there, her whole body arching with it, feeling like the whole universe has contracted into this one second.

When she opens her eyes, Faye is laughing at her, smug and relaxed. Cassie tugs her down and kisses her, licks into her mouth and fumbles her way into Faye’s tiny sleep shorts until Faye’s a shuddering mess too.

“I love you,” Cassie whispers into the space between them afterwards. “And I want you on my side too.” Diana’s curled up behind Faye, asleep, and that’s less new for the two of them than either will admit, Cassie can tell. 

“Not without Diana,” Faye whispers back, sounding a mixture of determined and resigned.

Cassie sighs. “Yes, but—” Faye’s looking away now, staring out past her through Diana’s bedroom window to the sea. “Faye,” Cassie says, as firm and resolute as she can, and she can tell by the tug of the silver cord that Faye’s paying attention even if she doesn’t show it. “Not without you, either.”

THE END


End file.
